A Sky Full of Stars Read online

  Lively “amens” bounced around the room, until Mrs. Robinson interrupted with “Y’all heard they went ahead and integrated over there in Hoxie, right?”

  “Did the governmen—” someone began in a hushed tone.

  “Nooo,” Mrs. Robinson interrupted. “Their superintendent said it was the right thing to do in the sight of God. They just went ahead and integrated. Nobody told ’em they had to.”

  “Lord-a-mercys” replaced the “amens.”

  I didn’t know where Hoxie was, but I sure knew that integration was something that white folks seemed to fear more than anything else. I couldn’t tell exactly what was happening on the other side of that wall, but I sensed that the mood had changed. Especially when I heard one of the ladies begin to cry.

  “Lord, what is this world coming to?” the sobbing woman said. “Arkansas is right next door to us. We could be next.”

  Sofas creaked and feet shuffled as the women gathered to soothe whoever was sobbing.

  “Hoxie is allowing the colored children to attend the white schools because they don’t have the funds to build proper colored schools,” said Mrs. Robinson. “Our colored schools are very nice, so we don’t have to worry about all that integration nonsense.”

  Very nice, huh? You moved tombstones from the colored graveyard and built a brick school over it. I bet you don’t want the colored press to report that!

  I wanted so badly to escape to the kitchen before I heard even more that I would regret. Plus, my heart thumped rapidly at the thought of Ma Pearl suddenly sauntering out—​or worse, one of the ladies coming out of the parlor—​and catching me. But my legs simply wouldn’t cooperate. They kept me clinging to that wall.

  “I hope you’re right” came the sobbing voice. “People are much happier with their own kind.”

  “What colored child would want to endure the same instructions as a white child anyway?” asked Mrs. Robinson. “I don’t think they’d ever be able to keep up.”

  “The poor dears,” someone said. “I imagine it would be pure torture.”

  Now the only noise that came from the parlor was mixed chatter. All I could discern from it was “happy,” “colored,” and “separate.”

  I’d had enough of eavesdropping on the Cackling Church Club and was ready to head back to the kitchen. But as soon as my foot edged from the wall, I heard a voice that stopped me. It was Mrs. Jamison.

  “I think we could all learn a thing or two from the folks over in Hoxie,” she said. “The government shouldn’t have to force us to integrate our schools. There’s no point in throwing good money away building more schools when we have plenty of room for all of Stillwater’s children in the white schools.”

  “Mercy, Kay!” someone gasped. “Have you lost your mind?”

  The whole house grew still. So still that I swear I could hear the sun shining.

  “No, I have not lost my mind,” Mrs. Jamison finally said. “What sense is there to keep building all these schools just to keep the children separate?”

  The next voice was sharp. “Because that’s just the way things are. And it’s the way they should be. If our colored folks wanted their children to go to the same schools as white children, then they’d move up north like the rest of them. The fact that they stay here proves that they’re happy here.”

  “Kay,” Mrs. Robinson said gently. “Imagine if this was when your boys were younger. I don’t think you’d feel the same way if your children were still in school.”

  The “amens” returned.

  “I’ve always felt this way,” Mrs. Jamison retorted.

  The sharp voice responded. “Is that why you sent Jason to Yale and let him marry a dumb Yankee?”

  “Now, now, Charlotte,” said Mrs. Robinson. “Let’s not get carried away. This is a Bible study after all.”

  I cringed. I didn’t see even one Bible when I stepped into that parlor.

  Now the voice of whoever had poisoned the air with the word “niggers” came through loud and clear.

  “I wish the niggers who ran up north would just stay up north and mind their own business. I wish they’d quit poisoning the minds of the good colored people with all this hate and nonsense.”

  Someone else, with an exasperated sigh, said, “It’s like that wretched War Between the States is happening all over again. If it ain’t one group fighting against the South, it’s another.”

  There was silence, then the sobs returned. “Why does everyone hate us so much?” she said. “Southerners are the most hospitable and kindest people in this country. But they treat us like criminals.”

  Sofas creaked. Feet shuffled. “There, theres” followed.

  The only criminals I knew of were Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, and an all-white jury had set them free. I shook my head and willed my feet to take me to the kitchen—​away from the voices of the Cackling Church Club. I’d had enough of the poison they were dishing out. It was making me sick.

  Chapter Three

  Monday, November 7

  THE THING I HATED MOST ABOUT HELPING MA PEARL out at Mrs. Robinson’s house was coming back to my own. From the moment dust began settling on my worn-out shoes as I trudged up the path until the moment I entered our front room filled with Mrs. Robinson’s castoffs, my heart felt sick.

  As I crossed our splintered porch that evening, anger rose from the depths of my soul. It made no sense that we labored from sunup until sunset in those cotton fields from early spring till late fall, and Mr. Robinson was the only one who had something to show for it.

  Rows of pecan trees lined the paved road leading to his home, while a lonely twisted oak, its roots snaking every which way, shaded our grassless front yard. And the house he allowed us to live in, while larger than the houses of a few folks we knew, was still no more than a shack—​with no running water, electricity in only one room, and an outside toilet where you constantly swatted flies while doing your business. There wasn’t even a sink in the kitchen where we could wash the dishes. Which reminded me of one thing I was grateful for—​my hands weren’t chafed from lye soap. For her dishes, Mrs. Robinson used a creamy, liquid soap, called Joy. The radio advertisement was right: my hands really did feel good immersed in Joy’s lotion-soft suds, but that didn’t mean I did the dishes “with joy” as the radio announcer so proudly proclaimed I should.

  Luckily, at my own house, doing dishes was no longer my concern. With my aunt Ruthie and her brood of five living with us for the past month, housework was how she earned their keep. I was glad she was finally away from Slow John, that evil drunkard husband of hers, but I was not so glad for the extra bodies taking up the small space that already felt cramped.

  From the porch I could hear Aunt Ruthie’s children through the screen door. Four-year-old Mary Lee and two-year-old Alice chased each other, giggling as always. The boys, seven-year-old Lil’ John and six-year-old Virgil, were probably out back with Fred Lee, making themselves useful one way or another. And the baby, little Abigail, for once wasn’t screaming from an ear infection or some other ailment.

  But once they heard Ma Pearl’s heavy footsteps dragging across the porch, they would all grow quiet. I knew that when I opened that screen door to the front room I’d find them sitting as still as the paintings on Mrs. Robinson’s walls.

  It should have been Aunt Ruthie who ran and hid when Ma Pearl approached, considering how much Ma Pearl complained about her, always finding fault where there was none. Aunt Ruthie did her best with what she had, but Ma Pearl was never satisfied. The dishes were never washed fast enough. The floor was never swept thoroughly enough. And her oversize bloomers were never bleached white enough. Aunt Ruthie was, after all, having to care for her own children while trying to keep Ma Pearl’s house spotless. If Ma Pearl wanted to work someone, she should have taken Queen out of school. She wouldn’t be allowed to finish anyway once folks noticed that she was in the family way. Of course, even though Ma Pearl claimed a seventh grade education was more than I needed,
she herself knew that finishing high school was the better option for any Negro who had the opportunity. This is why she was trying her best to keep her favorite grandchild—​Queen—​in school, and her least favorite grandchild—​me—​out.

  With Papa gone to Arkansas, it had been a torturously long weekend for the rest of us left to Ma Pearl’s wrath. Later that evening I was so glad to see Reverend Jenkins’s car pull up with Papa in it that I almost ran to it and hugged it. But I was too tired to heave myself off the edge of the front porch. So I just sat there, legs swaying back and forth beneath the raised porch, with absolutely no concern for what critters might be lurking below it. I waved wearily as Papa, Reverend Jenkins, and Hallelujah emerged from the Buick. The looks on their faces said they were as weary as I.

  They should have returned to Stillwater on Sunday, after the funeral. But Reverend Jenkins had called his sister Bertha to get word to Ma Pearl that they would be staying in Blytheville until today. Some kind of emergency had come up, and it required Reverend Jenkins’s attention.

  Hallelujah, clad in creased khakis and a soft yellow shirt, walked ahead of Papa and Reverend Jenkins. His penny loafers tread softly over the grass-bare yard as he strolled toward me.

  “How was Arkansas?” I asked when he plopped beside me on the edge of the porch.

  Hallelujah let out a tired puff of air and removed his fedora from his head. He wiped sweat from his face even though the evening air had a slight chill. His expression told me he was searching for something clever to say. After a moment he frowned and said wryly, “Separate, but not equal.”

  Though he was frowning, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Separate, but not equal” had become our own little saying when white folks in Stillwater started acting even crazier after the Emmett Till murder trial. We couldn’t understand why they were so upset. It was the Negro who had lost. Yet somehow they still felt offended that there had ever been the need for the trial in the first place, like that trial somehow signified that the northern Negroes and the NAACP really could make a change in Mississippi. They may have killed Emmett Till, and his murderers might have even gotten away with it, but somehow it still left them ruffled and nervous.

  I noticed that Hallelujah still hadn’t smiled. He held his fedora in his hands and stared at the ground. It was then that I noticed the looks on Papa’s and Reverend Jenkins’s faces as they climbed the steps to the porch. When they had entered through the screen door to the parlor, I asked Hallelujah what was going on.

  His forehead creased, but he remained silent.

  Back in July when he turned fourteen, I thought of how Papa described him as “fourteen going on forty.” Yet even then, he still had a fun side to him. But after he witnessed that horrible trial back in September, it seemed his playful spirit had nearly disappeared.

  I was hoping it would soon return. I wanted the old Hallelujah back.

  I didn’t prod him about what was going on. Instead, I put a little space between us, leaned my back against a porch post, and placed my feet upon the porch. I crossed my arms over my chest while I rested my head against the post and closed my eyes. The weariness of the day seemed to seep out of my body and into the cool November air. I needed something to pull the misery that Mrs. Robinson and her church friends had placed in me out.

  But just as a nearby whippoorwill began her evening song, Hallelujah decided to speak. “Your cousin David was in jail. That’s why we stayed till today. Preacher had to meet with some NAACP members. They had to bail him out.”

  I bolted upright. “Mule? Uncle Charlie’s son? What happened?”

  Hallelujah’s expression darkened, but he didn’t answer me.

  The look on his face made my stomach flip. If the NAACP was involved, I knew my cousin had to be in serious trouble. While I had no idea what had happened, just the thought of my cousin being in jail frightened me. David, or Mule, as we called him, had gotten that name because he was stubborn. Born that way, according to Ma Pearl. Took his own sweet time coming out of his mama, nearly killing her.

  He also carried a pistol. So thoughts about what he might have done sent shivers up my arms.

  “What happened?” I asked again, my throat going dry.

  Hallelujah sighed and shook his head. “He punched a white man in the face.”

  Blood rushed to my head. It throbbed as Hallelujah continued, “David—​Mule—​used to work for the man, at his restaurant. He fired Mule but still owed him money. Mule’s story is that he went to the man’s house to get his money, and the man attacked him.”

  I cringed. “Please don’t tell me that the man said Mule attacked him instead.”

  Hallelujah shook his head. “He didn’t.” With a frustrated sigh, he said, “No. Mule didn’t hit him then. He thought he’d pay him back another way. He decided to go to the man’s restaurant and waltz right into the dining room and sit down.”

  “What!”

  Hallelujah nodded. “Yep.”

  “Mule is so stupid,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “When the man asked him to leave, Mule got up, punched the man in the face, and tore out of there faster than a hound on a hunt.”

  “God help us,” I whispered.

  “That’s what caused your uncle Charlie to have a heart attack. When the sheriff came to the house to arrest Mule, your uncle Charlie just slumped over and died.”

  “When Papa got word that Uncle Charlie had died, nobody told him what happened. Just that his heart gave out while he was sitting at home eating his supper.”

  “I guess they didn’t wanna risk Mr. Carter’s heart giving out, too.”

  I shook my head. “This is horrible.”

  Hallelujah frowned and stared at the ground. “That’s not all.”

  My heart took a dive.

  “They beat him up pretty bad in jail. Broke most of his ribs and his right jaw. His eye was still swollen shut when we saw him. That’s why the NAACP had to get him out. He’s lucky to be alive.”

  “What’s gonna happen now?”

  “He got charged with trespassing and assault and battery. Preacher said there’ll be a trial.”

  “Is Mule safe? What if they come after him while he’s out of jail?”

  “He’s hidden. But it’s up to him to stay put and stay out of trouble.”

  I groaned. “I can’t believe this is happening. How could Mule do something so dumb? How could he just walk right into the man’s restaurant and hit him in the face?”

  Hallelujah clenched his teeth. “He said he was fed up. Now he’s beat-up. And your uncle Charlie is dead.”

  A sharp pain hit my stomach when I thought about the one person who was probably suffering the most—​Aunt Mildred, Mule’s mama. “How’s Aunt Mildred holding up?”

  Hallelujah frowned and shook his head. “Terrible.”

  “It’s a shame that a white man in Mississippi can kill a Negro and be set free. But all a colored man has to do is hit a white man and he gets beat up in jail.”

  “The NAACP hired him a lawyer. Hopefully he’ll at least get a fair trial.”

  My mouth twisted into a frown. “Speaking of trials, I heard something at the Robinsons’ today. I’m not real sure, but I think they were talking about Roy Bryant and his brother. They said something about ‘making those boys go back to court.’”

  Hallelujah rolled his eyes. “It’s not a trial. A grand jury will decide whether there will be a trial for kidnapping.”

  “For kidnapping Emmett Till?”

  Hallelujah nodded.

  “After they’ve already been set free for killing him?”

  “Yep.”

  “When is this court thing?”

  “Wednesday.”

  “This Wednesday?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you didn’t tell me about it?”

  Hallelujah shrugged. “What’s to tell? The case will go before a grand jury who already knows they kidnapped Emmett Till. The grand jury will say there’s not enough ev
idence and dismiss the whole thing, making a mockery of the NAACP and all their efforts once again. Bryant and Milam will never see the inside of a prison for killing or kidnapping Emmett Till.”

  I grunted. “And who knows what will happen with poor Mule just for punching a white man, once.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Hallelujah said, nodding.

  “Did you also know that they’re integrating schools in Arkansas?” I asked.

  Hallelujah’s forehead creased. “You talking about Hoxie?”

  “You knew?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me that either?”

  Hallelujah shrugged. “Forgot.”

  “How could you forget something so important?”

  “Important?” Hallelujah scoffed. “They only integrated because they’re too broke to segregate. Now, if it’d been a big city like Little Rock, that would be important. That would be good news, like Topeka, Kansas.”

  “Humph,” I said. “The Cackling Church Club clucked about it like Chicken Little, like the sky was falling, and the end was near.”

  “The Cackling Church Club?”

  I grinned. “That’s what I call Mrs. Robinson’s Bible study group.”

  “I’d like to be a fly on the wall and listen in on them sometimes myself,” said Hallelujah.

  I told him what Mrs. Robinson and her friend had said about colored children not being smart enough to attend the same school as white children.

  His face flushed with anger. “So I guess they never heard of Dr. T. R. M. Howard right up in Mound Bayou?” he said. “Do they think he became a surgeon by accident? He had to attend medical school just like any white doctor.”

  Nodding in agreement, I said, “And if they’d rewrite those history texts like Miss Johnson suggested last year in seventh grade, then they’d know that colored people were artists and writers and inventors and explorers and a whole bunch of other important things just like white people.”